Jim Yong Kim Officially Announced As World Bank President

4/16/2012 3:17 PM ET

World Bank executive directors announced Monday via press release that they have selected Jim Yong Kim as the new President of the World Bank Group. The executive directors selected Kim as President for a five-year term beginning on July 1, 2012.

For the first time in the Bank's history, there were multiple nominees, although Kim was widely expected to win the World Bank's top job. Kim had won the support of countries including Canada, Mexico, South Korea, Japan and Russia.

The World Bank President position is an open nomination process where any national of the Bank's membership could be proposed by any Executive Director or Governor.

"I am pleased to work with Jim Yong Kim during the transition. He is an impressive and accomplished individual," said out-going World Bank President, Robert Zoellick.

Zoellick added, "His rigorous, science-based drive for results will be invaluable for the World Bank Group as it modernizes to better serve client countries in overcoming poverty."

Kim, a Korean-American, is currently President of Dartmouth College and also a former director of the Department of HIV/AIDS at the World Health Organization (WHO).

Kim graduated magna cum laude from Brown University in 1982 before earning a medical doctorate from Harvard Medical School in 1991 and a Ph.D. in anthropology from Harvard University in 1993.

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